Professor of Teaching
Dept. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology | Conservation & Restoration Science Program | Charlie Dunlop School of Biological Sciences
Oct 16, 2024, The Anteater Magazine Fall 2024 – Issue 1, By Christine Byrd
Planting Seeds for the Future
Newkirk Faculty Fellow, Jessica Pratt, Ph.D. ’13: In her classes, Jessica Pratt, Ph.D. ’13, professor of teaching in ecology and evolutionary biology introduces students to the Japanese philosophy of ikigai. The concept helps people identity their life’s purpose by looking at the intersection of skills, passions, job opportunities and what the world needs. Pratt’s life purpose has driven her to spend two decades at UC Irvine as a first-generation student. researcher, teacher and scholarship supporter.
January 21, 2023, The Washington Post, By Chris Mooney and Simon Ducroquet
When scientists tagged a curious seal, he led them to signs of a potential climate disaster
“We dug out these data because we wanted to find out if warm water can indeed reach this glacier,” said Eric Rignot, an Antarctic expert at the University of California at Irvine, Newkirk Advisory Board Member and one of the authors of the paper. “The answer seemed to be yes.”
January 12, 2023, UCI News, by Brian Bell
Extreme distance learning
Taking distance learning to a new extreme, UCI glaciologist and Newkirk Advisory Board Member, Eric Rignot taught the January 10 opening session of his winter quarter climate science course from Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth research station in Antarctica.
Oct 25 2022, Daniella McCahey, Newkirk Graduate Fellow
Antarctica: A History in 100 Objects
Daniella McCahey, a recipient of a Newkirk graduate fellowship and now Assistant Professor in British History at Texas Tech University, recently published Antarctica: A History in 100 Objects (Bloomsbury, 2022) along with Jean de Pomereu.
May 2022, by Joseph F. C. DiMento, Newkirk Center for Science & Society Advisory Board Member
Polar Shift: The Arctic Sustained
Polar Shift addresses how to sustain the Arctic’s richness, beauty, and local and global value. Its core describes programs specifically created to protect this region: the great inventory of law, policy, and civil society activity targeting sustainability of the region. It presents the Arctic’s environmental health very broadly understood and competing ideas of how it can be maintained or improved with specific recommendations. This is a book about the Arctic’s past and how it was envisioned, about its environment, its people, and their cultures.
July 28, 2022, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Newkirk Graduate Fellows in Community-based Research with the Research Justice Shop win 1st place in Environmental Justice Video Challenge for Students
UC Irvine’s Team Members: Tim Schütz, David Banuelas, Annika Hjelmstad, Ariane Jong, Ashley Green, Javier Garibay, Alexis Guerra, and Irene Martinez. Video: Unearthing Lead: The Power of Historical Maps.
July 26, 2022, NBC News
For wrongfully convicted Black men, exoneration can be just as traumatizing as prison
Black people are seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than whites, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. The registry — run by the University of Michigan Law School, Michigan State University College of Law and the Newkirk Center for Science and Society at the University of California, Irvine — also noted that although just 13% of the population is Black, 47% of the known exonerations are of Black people.
January 26, 2022, Office of the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor
Steve Allison, Director of the Newkirk Center for Science & Society named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Steven Allison, Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology – for distinguished contributions to the field of ecology and evolution, particularly the analysis of microbial feedbacks to environmental change, and for training and local community outreach on environmental issues.
December 24, 2021, by Rachel Leigh Greenspan & Elizabeth F. Loftus
Patterns in the use of best practices for eyewitness identifications in the field, Psychology, Crime & Law
Much of the empirical research in the field of eyewitness
identifications focuses on factors affecting eyewitness accuracy.
The current study focuses on when evidence-based practices for
eyewitness identifications are used by police in the field.
November 1, 2021, 10WBNS by Yolanda Harris
Columbus woman’s exoneration makes history
“Columbus woman’s wrongful conviction has made history in Ohio and nationwide, and now the National Registry of Exonerations is taking notice.”
OCTOBER 1, 2021
Steven D. Allison Appointed Director of the Newkirk Center for Science & Society
Professor Allison holds a joint appointment in the Schools of Biological Sciences and Physical Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University and studies the resilience of microbial communities to drought and the effect of rapid climate change on carbon losses from southern California ecosystems.
JULY 19, 2021 BY LEANNE OZAKI
UCI’s Research Justice Shop: Transforming Academic Research for the Greater Good
At UCI, research is an integral part of campus culture. However, research goes far beyond studying samples in the lab or poring over ancient texts. At the Research Justice Shop (RJS), co-founders and co-directors Connie McGuire and Victoria Lowerson Bredow are working with the Newkirk Center for Science & Society and the Division of Undergraduate Education to teach students how to conduct research with an emphasis on serving communities and addressing the social and environmental problems they face.
UCI NEWS, JULY 1, 2021 BY CHRISTINE BYRD
Research solidarity with communities
The Research Justice Shop led by Victoria Lowerson Bredow, director of engaged scholarship, and Connie McGuire, director of community relationships, teaches interdisciplinary graduate students a more collaborative, inclusive way to engage with groups they study.
SOJOURNERS, JULY 1, 2021 BY MAURICE POSSLEY
Wrongful Convictions Haunt the U.S.
I knew Carlos DeLuna was innocent. ‘The Phantom’ reminds us that capital punishment is unjust. – Maurice Possley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of four nonfiction books. Possley is currently the senior researcher for The National Registry of Exonerations, a database of more than 2,800 wrongful convictions maintained by the University of California Irvine Newkirk Center for Science & Society, University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law.
TWO ADVANCING EQUITY FORUMS ON MAY 5 AND MAY 13
Research Justice Shop Co-Director, Victoria Ann Lowerson Bredow, Speaker at Advancing Equity in the Age of COVID-19 Forum
TED-style presentations on scholarship and projects introducing new ideas and approached for “Advancing Equity in the Age of COVID-19.” These two events highlight scholarship funded by the Office of Inclusive Excellence to bring pioneering practices and lessons learned from the current pandemic to strengthen research, teaching, and service at UCI.
NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS – 2020 ANNUAL REPORT
129 People Exonerated in 2020 Lost 1,737 Years of Freedom to Wrongful Conviction
The National Registry of Exonerations recorded 129 exonerations that took place in 2020. Government officials — usually prosecutors or police — committed misconduct that we know about in two-thirds of those cases (87/129). Collectively, the innocent people who were exonerated in 2020 spent 1,737 years incarcerated, an average of 13.4 years lost per exoneree.
OC REGISTER – JOSÉ REA INSPIRED A COMMUNITY ACTION GROUP THAT SEES LOCAL MONITORING AS THE KEY TO CLEANER AIR – MARCH 28, 2021
OC Register article written by Brenna Biggs, doctoral candidate in Chemistry. As a Newkirk Fellow ‘19-20, Brenna collaborated with Research Justice Shop’s partner organization Madison Park Neighborhood-GREEN. Brenna collaborated on the air monitoring project mentioned in the article. For more information about the fellowship please visit the Research Justice Shop website. To view Brenna and her fellow graduate students’ presentation of the collaborative project done with MPN-GREEN see here.
DEPARTMENT OF CIMINOLOGY, LAW & SOCIETY – FEBRUARY 2021
Congratulations Gabriela Gonzalez, Newkirk Fellow
Gabriela Gonzalez, Newkirk Fellow 2018-19, has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at California State University, Dominguez Hills in Criminal Justice.
THE WASHINGTON POST – EARTH IS NOW LOSING 1.2 TRILLION TONS OF ICE EACH YEAR. AND IT’S GOING TO GET WORSE – BY CHRIS MOONEY & ANDREW FREEDMAN – JANUARY 25, 2021
“It’s like cutting the feet off the glacier rather than melting the whole body,” said Eric Rignot, UCI Donald Bren Professor, Earth System Science and Newkirk Advisory Board Member
A second, NASA-backed study on the Greenland ice sheet, for instance, finds that no less than 74 major glaciers that terminate in deep, warming ocean waters are being severely undercut and weakened. … “It’s like cutting the feet off the glacier rather than melting the whole body,” said Eric Rignot, a study co-author and a glacier researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California, Irvine. …
TAYLOR & FRANCIS ONLINE – DECEMBER 2020
‘The last refuge of male chauvinism’: print culture, masculinity, and the British Antarctic Survey (1960-1996) by former Newkirk Fellow, Daniella McCahey
In 1996, the British Antarctic Survey opened Halley Research Station (Halley) to women researchers, thereby officially giving women equal access to all Antarctic bases. A main reason that Antarctic researchers insisted that women be excluded from British Antarctic research stations was fears that they would disrupt base cohesion. Through examining magazines produced by the men stationed at Signy and Halley, the author offers evidence that alongside this exclusion, the men developed a homosocial culture, using overt sexualisation of women to perform masculinity. Rather than becoming more respectful, many of the clipping from erotic magazines, references to prostitution, pornographic stories and jokes, and sexual fantasies became more explicit as the integration of women drew nearer. The print culture at British Antarctic research stations demonstrates social and cultural norms predicated on simultaneous objectification and exclusion of women.
NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS – SEPTEMBER 2020
Government Misconduct and Convicting the Innocent: The Role of Prosecutors, Police, and Other Law Enforcement
The report on Official Misconduct in Exonerations is out! It has already been covered by the Washington Post, the New York Times, NBC News, and USA Today.This is the most comprehensive study yet of official misconduct by police, prosecutors, and other officials based on an analysis of 2,400 exonerations in the Registry.
2019-20 NEWKIRK COMMUNITY-BASED RESEARCH INITIATIVE GRADUATE STUDENT FELLOWS PRESENTATIONS – SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Building Membership-driven Environmental Justice with Orange County Environmental Justice (OCEJ)
Newkirk Community-based Research Initiative Graduate Student Fellows share their experience doing community-based research supporting Orange County Environmental Justice (OCEJ). OCEJ brings the fight for environmental justice to Orange County through advocacy, public accountability, healing, and systemic transformation. Since forming in 2016, projects have included canvassing and surveying residents vulnerable to negative environmental impacts, leading the ¡Plo-NO! Santa Ana project, and starting Communities Organizing for Better Water
Newkirk Fellows: Jazette Johnson, Jennifer Renick and Elizabeth Hanna Rubio
2019-20 NEWKIRK COMMUNITY-BASED RESEARCH INITIATIVE GRADUATE STUDENT FELLOWS PRESENTATIONS – SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Community Air Monitoring in a Disadvantaged Community: University/CBO Collaboration with Madison Park Neighborhood Association (MPNA)
Newkirk Community-based Research Initiative Graduate Student Fellows share their experience doing community-based research supporting Madison Park Neighborhood Association. MPNA, and the associated non-profit, MPNA-GREEN, which stands for Getting Residents Engaged in Exercise and Nutrition. MPNA works primarily in the city of Santa Ana, California. The vision of MPNA-GREEN is “working to improve the quality of life for all residents in the Madison Park neighborhood and surrounding South-East Santa Ana.”
Newkirk Fellows: Biblia Cha, Brenna Biggs & Désirée Greenhouse
2019-20 NEWKIRK COMMUNITY-BASED RESEARCH INITIATIVE GRADUATE STUDENT FELLOWS PRESENTATIONS – SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Supporting Resident-based Organizational Development with Madison Park Neighborhood Association (MPNA)
Newkirk Community-based Research Initiative Graduate Student Fellows share their experience doing community-based research supporting Madison Park Neighborhood-GREEN. Established in 1987 as a grassroots, resident-driven, community-building organization; MPN is working to improve the quality of life for all residents in the Madison Park neighborhood and surrounding South-East Santa Ana. MPN became a non-profit in 2009 and in 2011 launched The Getting Residents Engaged in Exercise and Nutrition (GREEN), programs at James Madison Elementary School as part of the Santa Ana Building Healthy Communities Initiative (SABHC) from The California Endowment.
Newkirk Fellows: Marilyn Garcia and Emanuel Preciad
WRITING FOR YOUR LIFE – AUGUST 18, 2020
Faith, Hope, and Love During an Election – with Maurice Possley
Learn more about Newkirk Center of Science and Society’s Senior Researcher and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maurice Possley here: http://www.mauricepossley.com/
THE NORTHERN LIGHT BY CHRISTINA SWAYNEY – JULY 27, 2020
National Registry of Exoneration’s 2017 report referenced in “BLM responds to a long history of racism.”
Black Lives Matter, or BLM, is a movement that the entire nation and the world are now familiar with. People see it on a global scale right now because of the death of George Floyd. Many people understand why the spotlight on BLM is so intense right now but some refuse to acknowledge the purpose of this movement. The struggle of people of color in the United States has existed long before BLM rose to prominence…
A 2017 study by The University of California shows that innocent Black Americans are over 50% more likely to be convicted of crimes such as murder and sexual assault than white Americans.
Newkirk Center for Science and Society Welcomes 3 New Distinguished Board Members – July 2020
Kristen Davis
Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Associate Professor, (Joint Appointment) Earth System Science
Dele Ogunseitan
University of California Presidential Chair
Professor and Founding Chair, Population Health & Disease Prevention
Eric Rignot
Chair and Donald Bren Professor, Earth System Science, School of Physical Sciences
Senior Research Scientist, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Radar Science and Engineering
Chancellor’s Professor of Earth System Science, Earth System Science, School of Physical Sciences
The Office of Inclusive Excellence congratulates the grant recipients for “Are We in This Together? Advancing Equity in the Age of COVID-19” – June 2020
Director of Newkirk Center for Science & Society, Simon Cole and co-directors of the Newkirk Community-based Research Initiative, Constance McGuire and Victoria Bredow receive $25,000 award from the UCI Office of Inclusive Excellence, Confronting Extremism for their proposal in “Documenting for Inclusion, Healing, and Policymaking: The Experience of Essential Workers in Orange County during the COVID-19 Crisis.”
NEW YORK TIMES BY KATHARINE Q. SEELYE – JUNE 24, 2020
Kirk Smith, Towering Figure in Environmental Science, Dies at 73
Professor Kirk Smith, is remembered as one the most important environmental scientists by Newkirk Center for Science & Society Advisory Board Members. Professor Smith, spoke at the Toward a Sustainable 21st Century Series: Stopping the Pollution of the Planet: Priorities of Environmental Law and Health.
“Environmental Health of Women and Children in China” by Professor Kirk R. Smith (View Video)
Global Environmental Health
University of California, Berkeley
Member of The National Academy of Sciences
LOS ANGELES TIMES BY SIMON COLE AND BARRY SCHECK – JUNE 24, 2020
Op-Ed: DNA testing isn’t enough. We need the right to fingerprint matching – Newkirk Center Director, Simon Cole
Simon A. Cole, director of the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the University of California, Irvine Newkirk Center for Science & Society, University of Michigan Law School & Michigan State University College of Law and Barry Scheck write, “Improved fingerprint technology and the FBI’s Next Generation Identification system (the latest version of the repository of fingerprints submitted by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies) allow for better post-conviction database searching than earlier systems. The failure of states to provide post-conviction access to fingerprint databases is inexcusable.”
THE 7TH ANNUAL DYNAMIC WOMXN OF UCI AWARDS – JUNE 9, 2020
Newkirk Fellow Brenna Biggs Receives Dynamic Womxn of the Year Award
The 7th Annual Dynamic Womxn of UCI Awards celebrates the hard work of dynamic womxn across campus. Due to the online nature of spring quarter, the Womxn’s Hub will be celebrating and honoring our nominees and winners virtually! With the hard work of the Dynamic Womxn of UCI Awards planning committee, we have created a video to showcase the nominees and awardees for the 2020 year.
NEW YORK TIMES BY ROBIN GEORGE ANDREWS – MAY 2, 2020
“Antarctica vs. Science”
This is no isolated tale. The history of the scientific exploration of Antarctica is riddled with tales of woe, most often loss of life for the continent’s earlier explorers. And while major technological advancements and vastly improved safety regulations mean that the risk to Antarctic adventurers has been greatly reduced, equipment malfunctions that freeze scientific discovery persist there, said Daniella McCahey
–Daniella McCahey, Newkirk Fellow and UCI Alum
NEW YORK TIMES BY ELAINE PAGELS – NOVEMBER 11, 2019
“Faith and Reasons: Two Authors Explore the Persistence of Religious Feeling” – Newkirk Advisory Board Member, Jack Miles
Jack Miles’s new book opens with a question: What is religion, as we know it? Having edited “The Norton Anthology of World Religions” in 2015, after decades of teaching, this Pulitzer Prize-winning author is well aware of the difficulties of finding a workable answer. Here he focuses on this: How have we, in contemporary culture, come to separate religion from what we think of as ordinary, secular life? How was that artificial separation made for the first time?
11/14/2019 – UCI SCHOOL OF SOCIAL ECOLOGY
Loftus to Receive 8th Honorary Doctorate
Elizabeth F. Loftus, distinguished professor of psychological science and criminology, law and society, will be awarded her eighth honorary doctorate. On the grounds of her exceptional contribution to psychological science, pioneering applications to the administration of justice and her unwavering pursuit of scientific freedom, Australian National University will bestow the Doctor of Science Honoris Causa during its commencement ceremony next fall.
10/22/2019 – UCI SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Doctoral Student, Jennifer Renick, Awarded Newkirk Fellowship in Community-Based Research
The UCI Newkirk Center for Science & Society awarded doctoral student Jennifer Renick a Newkirk Fellowship in Community-Based Research for the 2019-20 academic year. As part of the fellowship, Renick will work with the Orange County Environmental Justice (OCEJ) organization and its People for Environmental Justice (PEJ) program.
BARNES & NOBLE 7881 EDINGER AVENUE #110 HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA 92647 : THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2019 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM PST
Pulitzer Prize Winner Author Jack Miles (Newkirk Advisory Board Member), Book Signing Event, His Book “God In the Qur`an”
The Pulitzer Prize winner author Jack Miles will give a talk and sign his book, “God In the Qur` an”
Who is Allah? What does He ask of those who submit to His teachings? Pulitzer Prize-winner Jacke Miles gives us a deeply probing, revelatory portrait of the world’s second largest, fastest-growing and perhaps most tragically misunderstood religion. In doing so, Miles illuminates what is unique about Allah, His teachings, and His resolutely merciful temperament, and he thereby reveals that which is false, distorted, or simply absent from the popular conception of the heart of Islam.
DAILY PILOT BY BEN BRAZIL – OCT. 11, 2019
“Orange County philanthropist helped save crucial Mexican lagoon used by gray whales for breeding” – Newkirk Advisory Board Member, Anne Getty Earhart
When the last undeveloped lagoon in Mexico that was crucial for gray whale migration was threatened with a giant salt production plant, the heiress of an oil tycoon’s fortune stepped up.
Orange County-based Anne Earhart, granddaughter of famed oil magnate John Paul Getty, played an integral role in fueling conservation efforts that saved the San Ignacio Lagoon nearly 20 years ago.
8/19/19 – UCI DONALD BREN SCHOOL OF INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCES
Informatics Ph.D. Student Jazette Johnson Receives Community-Based Research Fellowship
The mission of the Newkirk Center for Science & Society, established nearly 20 years ago with an endowment by Martha and James Newkirk, is to “improve science’s response to community needs and to increase the effective uses of scientific information for the benefit of society.” In support of that mission, the center offers yearlong Community Based Research (CbRI) Fellowships to UCI graduate students from all disciplines. Recently, informatics Ph.D. student Jazette Johnson learned she had been named a CbRI Fellow for the 2019-2020 year, starting Sept. 15. As a fellow, Johnson will receive $5,000 and will work with a local community partner.
Congratulations to our 2017-18 Newkirk Fellow Kimberly Duong!
Kimberly Duong received the 2019 UCI Engage Graduate Student Great Partners Award. This award honors graduate students who have initiated or participated in an exemplary community partnership through an on-campus program, organization, course, service-learning experience, or research project to address community issues or concerns.
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